I'll just leave this here.
SA scientists and medics are astonished about the UK Government reaction to Omicron. Ww know it's the SAGE reaction actually but there you go.
It’s time to heed the experts who provided the earliest data on omicron and are astonished at the UK’s reaction
www.telegraph.co.uk
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UK ‘cast doubt’ on South Africa’s science
So, we ask, why did the UK not want to believe what Dr. Coetzee was saying? Why were the words of Professor de Oliveira not convincing enough? And why did Britain only consider climbing down from its Omicron hysterics, once the same results were published by the Imperial College of London?
One person’s caution is another’s ignorance. Bizarre claims emerged from the UK’s scientific community in the first few days after Omicron was detected within their borders: Suggestions such as ‘this will cause one million cases a day’ and ‘it has a doubling time of fewer than two days’ came from the very top.
Of course, neither statement seemed to carry much weight or credence. Both have, so far, been proven wrong. But why were people like Chris Whitty, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, so determined to ignore the positive signs coming from South Africa?
Those who spend their careers preparing for the worst-case scenarios will always claim they have to work on pessimistic assumptions. But the UK, with its rapid COVID-19 booster programme and high levels of vaccine uptake, seemed all too happy to trash its own success.
Around 90% of Brits got themselves vaccinated in 2021. Roughly 60% of them – tens of millions of citizens – have had their third jabs, too. The wall of immunity built up in Britain, alongside its large rates of previous infections, must dwarf Mzansi’s.
Time for fear is over
Alas, instead of backing the comprehensive science behind booster jabs and their strong efficacy against Omicron, the UK put itself in a tailspin. Both Wales and Scotland have introduced tougher social restrictions, and vaccine passports have been rolled out nationwide.
It just doesn’t make much sense, though. Even with seasonality fixed in for the Brits and their bleak winters, a large number of patients in hospitals are only testing positive for COVID-19 on an incidental basis. ICU beds and ventilator figures remain static.
South Africa told the world this was a milder form of coronavirus weeks ahead of schedule. They were ignored. The top medical professionals in this country were dismissed with an alarming disdain, and although cases continue to rise in Britain, hospitalisations and deaths have not followed at the same pace set during previous waves.
Make no bones about it, South Africa was punished when it alerted the world to Omicron, then ignored when it shared data highlighting the variant’s ‘reduced lethality’. Essentially, when it suited, our science was used to justify travel bans – then disregarded when the time came to de-escalate.
Where did the UK’s Omicron hysteria come from?
Only recently, within the past 72 hours or so, has the rhetoric started to calm in England.
Ans, as a UK-born writer for a South African publication, the last month has left me feeling like I’ve been gaslit. The people whose research formed the entire basis of our pandemic response were being cast as ‘unreliable’, by those in the British government – and its meek media landscape.
Nuts to ’em. The science from SA was never in doubt, and it shouldn’t be treated with such contempt ever again.”
